


Than Darkness

by meguri_aite



Category: Shin Sekai Yori | From the New World
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat, episode 10 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Flares from a dozen trails of aurora borealis light up the night sky and turn it into a madman’s painting, splashing all colors of the spectrum onto its dark canvas. Which is as accurate a description as any, seeing how neither this sky nor the northern lights are real.</p>
  <p>Metaphors lose their appeal when they get too literal, he thinks.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Than Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanktrilby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/gifts).



Flares from a dozen trails of aurora borealis light up the night sky and turn it into a madman’s painting, splashing all colors of the spectrum onto its dark canvas. Which is as accurate a description as any, seeing how neither this sky nor the northern lights are real.

Metaphors lose their appeal when they get too literal, he thinks.

Shun turns away from the contorted form of the window and walks back to the table, the wooden planks rippling with distortion under his every step. A stack of books on the table is flanked by a misshapen lump of glittering crystal, which he remembers being a bottle of poison not so long ago. The parting gift was a nice gesture, but ultimately as futile as everything else; a little souvenir reminding him of his own reluctance to put an end to things. A flick of his hand flips open the book closest to him, and Shun bends over to look at its pages, leaning his weight on his palms placed carefully on the table so that they wouldn’t touch the pages. Those records Saki’s mother took such pains to deliver to him don’t deserve to be destroyed before their time.

Time. Saki. Things he does not have.

Looking back, he thinks he has never felt any jealousy towards people who were close to Saki. What does it matter whose body is holding her at a given moment, whose face was turned to hers close enough hide in each other’s shadow, when his biggest enemy is his own mind, racing against time? Faced with the imminence of his mental decay, he thinks he’d rather thank anyone holding Saki’s hand  instead - for offering her the comfort of their embrace when the time comes.

Irrationally enough, the only person he has ever come close to envying was Satoru. For being talented while retaining a firm grip on his sanity, for having resilience and energy and most of all, for having the future to spend it on – with the usual caveat of ‘as much as any of them were allowed’, of course. Satoru’s ability to fit into society without losing himself is enviable and unattainable. It is not the only thing he could feel bad about regarding Satoru, but it is getting increasingly hard to remember why. When time is an unaffordably precious commodity, other thoughts take priority; less important thoughts tangle and sink back in, leaving only urgent ones at the forefront of his mind.

Even back at the Sage Academy he often wondered if going through the motions of dating routine with Satoru gave him more trouble or comfort. He played the part expected of him, of course, not to stand out too much where he needn’t have to, but Satoru’s genuine responses and easy, unconflicted acceptance of it made conforming to social patterns so much easier, and because Satoru was his friend, it wasn’t unpleasant. His joy was pure, and his touches were warm and real, good at steadying his heartbeat and anchoring him a little every day.

At the same time, the same script that dictated that the two of them be together by some twisted logic time and again brought him close to Saki, because she was Satoru’s friend, too. They would orbit around Satoru, propelled along their separate tracks by different motives, but crossing paths every so often. Their heads would be turned away, facing opposite directions – he would see to that, meticulously, every time  – but with their backs to each other, he could have his illusion of proximity to her.

Proximity, never intimacy. He owed her to cut her losses where he was still able to.

Saki. If he wanted to share that common space between them for a little longer, he had to keep his distance. His Cantus became more unstable the more agitated he grew, and nothing has ever brought emotions out of him as effortlessly as she did. Shun idly wonders if it was so easy to be pliant under Satoru’s caresses precisely because it meant that the tempest inside him would be coaxed to stay low for just a while longer, buying him more time to linger on things he couldn’t have.

Time. He doesn’t have much of it, and maybe in some other world he could have afforded to be consumed with guilt over neglecting Satoru and not giving him the appreciation he deserves, but the only thing he could do for him in this lifetime was to break off the dating arrangement between them. Saying cold things to drive Satoru away was very easy – many things are, he has found, when you are feeling increasingly detached from the world – and the look of hurt on Satoru’s face seemed like a laughably small price for sparing him the burden of losing an official lover. Satoru is sensitive about things like that, and this was the least Shun could do for him. In a kinder world, he would have had enough time to sincerely wish he had been a better friend to Satoru.

It speaks volumes that the sight of Saki he caught on his way back that day crumpled his composure far more effortlessly than the whole conversation with Satoru had. In her presence, masks have always slipped off his face as easily as droplets of water: it is hard to keep them in place when he doesn’t want to.

Shun feels the ceramic mask that covers his face now with his fingertips, then lets his hand fall idly back.

He hopes he had the break-up done early enough, but isn’t too sure; the time seems to have accelerated so much afterwards that it became impossible to get a good grip on things happening around him. Maybe without Satoru’s presence it was harder to follow the prescribed rhythms of everyday life, or maybe his Cantus was spiraling out of his control too fast – it was hard to tell. Detailed symptoms of Hashimoto-Appelbaum syndrome wasn’t something he could just consult the books about – at least, not until now.

The countdown for hours, not days, started when Kaburagi Shisei came to class. It was not his best day, the headache eroding his focus so much that he had to cover his head with his hands to keep his sickness of mind hidden. Back then Shun had wondered if he would have been able to conceal it for longer if the mage hadn’t chosen their class to inspect, if it had happened on any other day, but now it is clear to him how pointless that speculation was. Once he has begun to lose track of days, of people’s faces as he walked past them, maybe sooner was better than later. Maybe it meant fewer casualties.

The only instance when time seemed to pause, suspended, for one indefinitely short moment, breaking the sequence of blurring images and droning sounds, was when he ran into Saki on his way to leave home. Saki. Not saying too much to her has always been a task he’s never had the heart to do. The remarks about wanting solitude sounded false to his own ears, and he couldn’t even bring it to deliver them looking her straight in the eye. Was it his weakening control that affected his wording to make it painfully obvious this was a farewell, or did he want her to hear that, no matter what? Probably both. It was so very hard to deny Saki the most precious thing they had – the truth.

Stubborn Saki, who never gives up trying to help. Smart Saki, who saw through his farewells right into the heart of his solitude. When she asked him if he would really be alone in this bungalow, he wanted to tell her, _I wish_. He wishes he could be, but his demons come with him wherever he goes, and are now ripping this place apart, twisting the fabric of reality with his every breath.

When she came this close to telling him her feelings – and it wasn’t hard to see that she had them; in fact, it was much easier than choosing not to see them, every time – he did the only thing he could that was more important. Important enough to prevent him from spiraling into his personal hell of despair right there and then, dragging her with him, important enough for her to know even if he would crumble not even ten minutes later.

Instead of a catastrophe, he gave her the truth. As much of it as he could, with most of his focus on keeping the wasp balls orbiting evenly around his person, and careful to choose the right words of warning. So little time, Saki. Watch out for the cats, Saki. Take care, Saki. We’re being watched, tell the others, Saki. He hopes she’ll never have to use the charm he gave her, but he has known what the odds of this were even before she caught it into her hands, accepting it with a brittle smile. Tough Saki, who has always  hated to lose.

In agitation, Shun starts pacing across the room. The walls of the bungalow creak, their lines breaking at the whim of his thrashing Cantus, the wasp balls rattle, chased around the floor by invisible hands. The stunted trunk of a dead tree that used to grow through his house looms like a grim reminder of what happens when he lets his guard down.

Shun fights back the bile rising at the back of his throat, forcefully expelling memories of his parents’ faces, contorted first with grief, and next minute under his Pk-touch. He tells himself to see the dead tree as nothing more than it is, as nothing unusual in this madman’s space, his last illusionary refuge. A silent mutant, twisted under the weight of his thoughts and unquenchable thirst for life, for things he cannot have.

_Shun, Shun._ Sometimes he thinks he can hear her voice, calling out for him. It doesn’t help that the things he’s always wanted have always reached out to him. Sometimes he wants to begrudge her not making it any easier for him not to crave things, but he never does. And Saki would never listen to a selfish request like that anyway.

“Shun, where are you? Shun! I don’t know where I am, Shun!”

A cold dread washes over him, snapping him back to full awareness, sending wild flashes across the sky. He isn’t imagining the voice. Saki is here, in the middle of the wasteland that used to be Pinewind not so long ago.  A cordoned, toxic wasteland with Tainted Cats on the prowl, if the village authorities know their job.

He sends a projection of himself upwards, to the surface of the earth that is now a lake above nothingness, and his heart grows sick with the sight of Saki standing there like a tattered porcelain doll suspended on strings.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Shun hisses, applying a carefully measured Pk-touch to steer her away from this place, quickly, before any harm can happen to her. “Go home!”

“What’s going on? I won’t budge until you tell me!” He feels no surprise when she puts up a resistance, and keeps on pushing  her away with more urgency. But then she reaches for her throat and whispers, “I was almost killed.”

She slumps down as the pressure of his Cantus weakens, and Shun notices the broken necklace, and not too far away the body of a Tainted Cat, now dead.

Back in the wooden cabin, Shun’s body tenses as he quickly considers the options. Not that there are that many of them. He could risk teleporting her at a distance that would, in the best-case scenario, put her far away from Pinewind behind the Holy Barrier. But Saki, relentless and fierce Saki who has probably violated half of the Code of Ethics to come here, will keep on walking back right into danger zone until she has her answers. Next time, he might not hear her cries. Next time, she might not even have the time to cry for help. The authorities breed Tainted Cats for a reason.

Or he could tell her everything, even if it was the last thing he did. Not because he thinks that would stop her from walking into danger, but at least so that she wouldn’t do it blindly.

Truth, the most precious possession he has.

“Ten minutes. You can stay here ten minutes.” His last ten minutes are a meager price to pay for her future. He clears a narrow corridor to the surface of the lake and takes her hand to walk her into heart of his madness. Vivid purples and greens of the northern lights reflect off Saki’s pale face, and Shun knows he can’t keep ragged edges of derision and affection from tearing holes in his composure as he says, “Welcome.”

Saki standing in the middle of his ravaged family home is probably the most unreal thing in this place, he thinks as he sits behind the table and tries to steady his heartbeat. He picks up all the wasp balls in the room and lifts them up into the air, ready to set them off in complicated loops that will take a big enough toll on his Cantus to let them have this one conversation before it gets out of control.

“Ten minutes,” he repeats again. A reminder for Saki, a countdown for himself.

“Take off that mask,” she pleads, but he doesn’t listen. There is no time. There has never been enough time, and ten minutes is definitely not enough time for things she needs to hear to stay alive, but it is all he has. “Where should I start? All problems stem from the human heart…”

His voice, rough to his own ear from days of not being used, threatens to break a few times, to betray him just like his own subconscious has. But it is Saki’s life, Saki’s future that is on the line, so he continues, determined not give in to his flaws at least this once.

Saki listens as he tells her about the logic that has set in motion everything in their society, designed for the sole purpose of preventing the existence of fiends and karma demons. He maps out the anatomy of their powers, telling her of the Cantus leakage and the way the Pk-gifted scientists from centuries ago engineered it to flow outwards, behind the Holy Barriers, so that their descendants had a chance at a peaceful co-existence.  

He tries not to imagine the lightning-bright spark of a human thought as it blasts through a chain of synapses when, powered by the Cantus, it manifests into existence immediately after its conception, leaving no time for delay or correction. His own Cantus cannot be trusted not to bring those images to life like a macabre spectacle right there and then, and while the picture has a certain allure, a distraction is unaffordable.

Saki, stubborn Saki. She cries because none of it answers why he is a karma demon. He doesn’t cry. Karma demons don’t cry, they only bring death and corruption to their surroundings. Instead, he lets Subaru jump on his knees, stupid, loyal Subaru who has followed him against all survival instincts, the last living evidence of his weakness, and tries not to look at the soft expression on Saki’s face as he pats Subaru’s disfigured form.

That is how affection works between him and Saki.

The wasp balls continue flying along their trajectories inside and outside the house, wobbling and whirring. The aurora lights flash across the non-existent horizon with violent colors that don’t belong in the sky.

She refuses to accept the truth when he tells her, “I have become a karma demon.” She urges him to look for a way to reverse it. She blames herself for his deficiency, recalling the events of their summer trip two years ago. Brave Saki, who never shies from shouldering any burdens or responsibilities - but this isn’t one of them.

This isn’t even anything new. He is just the most recent case, and his impressions just continue the log of terminal patients with the same diagnosis.

She refuses to accept the truth, and demands to stay with him. She has never made it easy for him, he thinks as his composure finally crumbles.

“I don’t want anyone else I love to die in front of me,” he pleads quietly. To die _because_ of him.

Not once does her anger turn against him, against his indecisiveness that has taken so many lives already - she is only angry with her own helplessness.

He knows his time has ended when Subaru dies, jumping to his rescue. The stupid, affectionate dog has never understood that it’s not rescue but death that Shun needs. He only has to make sure that the next one will be his own.

Tear streaks on Saki’s face are the last things he sees before he lets the ground rip open under his feet and, finally, swallow him.

After all, karma demons ought not walk this earth.

“Goodbye, Saki.”

****  
  


**Author's Note:**

> dear tanktrilby, happy yuletide and thank you for agreeing to accept an episode 10 fic, even if it doesn't exactly match the details of your prompt! my heart is still too full of it, and i was really glad for an opportunity to cry about it to someone who would listen.
> 
> the title is nothing more and nothing less than the title of the episode itself ;_;


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